Chicken Soup for the Sentinel Soul
Chicken soup. Jim makes it every time, man, every time I get so much as a cold. He's worse than a Jewish great-aunt and I should know, I had half a dozen of them.
But it isn't your average chicken soup... oh no, see, Jim has this thing about comfort food, his is Chinese, all Chinese. Comes I guess from that lovely Chinese housekeeper Sally, who pretty much brought him up after his mom left, I guess (and how comfort food ties into Sentinel senses is something I really ought to study more closely, even if he snarls and refuses to share the soup, which would hurt 'cause it's good stuff, man).
It's Sally's ginger chicken soup he makes, in quantities that would feed half of Chinatown, and pretty much pours down my throat till I get over whatever I for in sheer self-defense.
I should have guessed after my first round of playing broken hearts with Maya. My big tough detective didn't tell me to suck it up like a man, he stood there in my doorway with this silly, sappy, ridiculously worried look on his face and a bowl of noodles in his hands. Noodles as a cure for love... I said no and sank back into misery. (Of course, when hunger got the better of the heartbreak, there were none left, were there? He needed comfort too, I guess.)
It's the same any time something's wrong - he may not say it, he may not always act like he cares, but he trots out the wok and the Canton cuisine as sure as Oriental clockwork. Man, after that business with the accidental drug overdose he fed me stir fries till I threatened to strangle him with the next noodle I saw... he also insisted on cozy Chinese dinners every night for a week after I got shot. In the leg. Man, what the hell he thought being shot in the leg did to my stomach I do not want to know.
Oh, not that I'm exactly complaining, you understand. His Sally's a wonderful cook and I get the feeling she entrusted him with some Very Secret Recipes (put it this way, man, he won't let me have them, not even so I can make him his comfort food when he needs it. Oh no, I have to order it in and then someone complains it's never quite as good to someone's overactive taste buds).
Anyway, enough of all that... this time it's his turn to need comfort, whatever everyone else thinks, and I'm gonna give it to him whether he wants it or not. Those half-dozen Jewish great-aunts taught me well.
-the end-